be able to investigate, isolate, and propagate new forms. It is never necessary for the farmer to do this, nor would he have the appliances to do it, or the time to devote to it. He does not even need to know how they look, for he can never see them without an expensive microscope, nor, if he should see them, would he be able to distinguish one from the other, unless constantly engaged in observing them. It requires a long time to become a bacteriologist, and constant practice to retain the art. It does not pay to teach such a difficult thing to one who can never make use of it. If the farmer suspects the presence of malignant bacteria in a plant or a product, his Agricultural College will make the investigation for him. Such accurate knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals as will enable one to trace and remove the causes of disease, is gained only by dissection and microscopic examination of living organisms, or those which have lived. This art, also, could not be practised by the farmer if he knew it, for lack of time, practice, and appliances. Why, then, learn it? Most of what he needs to know, in this and other lines, has already been discovered at great cost. It is silly to spend money to do over what has already been well done. His Agricultural College and its graduates will tell the farmer what is now known that concerns him, and will undertake the investigation of all new phenomena.

The phenomena of nature are infinite in variety, and new occasions for investigation are constantly arising. Upon these problems able men in all civilized countries are engaged, and the results of their studies are embodied in the special literature of their own languages. To keep abreast of these discoveries, and therefore save the cost of unnecessary duplicating work in investigation, the ability to read other languages than one's own is required. For this reason some part of the time spent in an Agricultural College is, or should be, devoted to the acquiring of a reading knowledge of one or more modern languages, usually the German and French, which are rich in accumulated information not accessible in English. It is seldom that any real mastery of these languages is attained by students, but they do become qualified to discover

and dig out what they need from time to time as they need it. It is evidently a waste of effort to devote time and money to learning how to imperfectly read what one will never see, when it is certain that the imperfect knowledge acquired will vanish in a year or two without constant use.

The time required to become a graduate of a first-class Agricultural College is seven or eight years, of which three or four are spent in preparatory work, and four in the college. The cost can not well be less than $300 per year, or $2,400, besides eight years of time. This sum, and time, after deducting the cost of a reasonable and well-directed education after leaving the common schools, would go far to buy and stock a small farm. If applied entirely to an education, it should be considered a capital sufficient to assure its possessor a means of livelihood for his life without the additional expense of buying a farm.

It should be plain, then, that the Agricultural College is an essential factor in assuring agricultural prosperity, but that its graduates are not necessarily to be working farmers. I do not say that the working farmer will not be the better for a complete education, provided he will work on his farm, but after spending time and money to fit himself for other work, he is not likely to do so and seldom does. A person, however, who can not or will not work on his farm ought never to own one. It is useless to know how to do things if we do not do them, and if an agricultural education is worth anything, it must qualify its possessor to do what the uneducated man can not do. The educated farmer who does not work on his farm may have the barren satisfaction of knowing somewhat more definitely than others just where he loses money, but this knowledge not followed up is hardly worth the cost of it.

The agricultural graduate is a professional man, who will usually, like the doctor, the lawyer, and the engineer, gain a living by the sale of his professional knowledge. There is no more need, and need be no more intent, that the graduate in agriculture should own a farm than that a mechanical engineer should own a factory. He is equipped to give professional advice, and, if desired, superintendence. Until lately there

has been almost no demand in America for the services of agricultural graduates, and their services are never likely to be so well rewarded as those of other professions. As a consequence, few students are found to take the full agricultural course, and of such as have done so the majority have drifted into other occupations. Nevertheless, as the demand for instruction in the branches of science bearing upon agriculture increases, the attendance at Agricultural Colleges will increase. It is increasing now. But most students are poor, struggling painfully to acquire knowledge and training by whose sale they can live. They have little use for education which will not sell. General culture is a beautiful thing, but it is a luxury, like a greenhouse or a yacht. A practical education is an education which will sell.

This, of course, is the purely commercial view of the subject. It is the view, so far as my observation goes, which the majority of university students are compelled to take. In the older and richer communities, from which I have been absent for many years, there are doubtless many who, having graduated from an Agricultural College, return to the manual labor of the farm. Whether they do or not, however, they have acquired true conceptions of the dignity of agricultural life; of the relationship of agriculture to the other arts; of the claims of agriculture upon the state for material aid, and of the nature of the aid which should be given; and they are prepared, as well-rounded and useful citizens, to become centers of powerful influence in the communities in which their lot may be cast.

For there is another view of higher education, far more comforting and inspiring than the commercial aspect in which I am presenting it, and with which, although I do not make it prominent in these pages, I can not permit myself to be thought unimpressed. It is well to be a good farmer; but it is far nobler to be a good citizen. While from the standpoint of the poor student the mercantile view may of necessity be almost overpowering, yet from the standpoints of the wise statesman who plans public aid for higher education, the strong teachers who rise to the direction of its effort, or the

mature citizen who is a lover of his race, the true end of education is not that the educated may be housed, and clothed, and fed, but that with a mind trained to think, and a heart inspired by daily contact with great souls, living and dead, he shall go forth in the fulness of his youthful strength, a good citizen and a noble man, to carry the light which he has received to all who may cross his path.

T

CHAPTER III.

THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

HE original idea of the Agricultural College included an experimental form, usually with the collateral idea that students might earn part of their support by working upon the farm, and that the farm would be some source of income None of these things were found practical. In the first place, it is not possible to endure the strain of securing a modern education and at the same time to do any considerable amount of physical labor. At least it is possible only to persons of far more than ordinary strength. An old-fashioned education such as answered very well a half century since could be obtained while performing a good deal of physical labor, provided the student had ordinary strength. So much, however, is now required to equip students to compete with others that the strength of the strongest is fully taxed. In fact, no good student can begin to do what he sees he needs to do, and it is only a question of what he shall neglect least or most. Students so engaged certainly need exercise and change, but hoeing potatoes is not found to answer the purpose It distinctly lacks the element of recreation which all young (and old) people desire and require, and, besides, the potatoes must be hoed when they need it, especially if there is a rain coming up, and the farm necessities were found to continually clash with the requirements of the class-room. The work done under such circumstances had no heart in it, and so was not well done; a portion only of the students engaged in it, and these could not keep pace with the others in the classes; and the practice has been abandoned nearly everywhere.

Besides the student difficulties there was the trouble with the instructors who were supposed to supervise the operations. It was discovered that there were first-rate professors of agricultural science who were horrible farmers. An accomplished